US buyers can still choose domestic shipping even though item location is Switzerland
Hello everyone,
I’m an eBay seller based in Switzerland and I sell vinyl records worldwide. I recently updated my shipping policies because I had a problem where a buyer from the United States was able to purchase an item using my domestic shipping price.
My current setup is:
• Item location: Switzerland
• Domestic shipping: Switzerland only (Economy Shipping $10)
• International shipping Europe: $29.99
• International shipping North/South America: $34.99
The policies are applied to all my listings and I confirmed that the listing shows “Item location: Switzerland”.
However, I still had a buyer from the United States who was able to complete the purchase using the cheaper domestic shipping option.
I even cancelled the listing and relisted it using the updated shipping policy, but the problem still occurred.
Has anyone experienced this issue before?
Is there a setting I might be missing that prevents international buyers from selecting domestic shipping?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
zurichvinyl
OP5 months agoThank you all very much for taking the time to reply and help me understand this issue. I really appreciate the explanations from everyone in this thread.
After reading your responses and doing a bit more research (and with some help from ChatGPT), I believe I’ve now understood what the problem was. My listings were originally created on eBay.com, which means the system treated the United States as the domestic shipping region, even though my item location is Switzerland.
Because of that, US buyers were seeing my domestic shipping rate instead of international shipping.
The solution for me will be to end the current listings and relist them while logged into eBay.de, and create a new shipping policy from there. That way the listings belong to the German marketplace, and shipments to the USA will correctly be treated as international shipping.
Thanks again to everyone who contributed and helped point me in the right direction — it’s much appreciated!
marnotom!
·5 months agoWhile I think this may be the best way to go, you may find if you're trying to attract buyers from the US, your listings won't have the same visibility as they would on eBay.com if the buyers on this site are using the "best match" search filter. I don't know if listing in euros on eBay Ireland or listing in sterling on eBay UK would be any better or not, but at least those are English language sites.
ryry-jj
·5 months agoYes, as you are finding out, when you list on the .com site everything shipping to the US will show as domestic. Shipments to outside the US will be international, even the package to Switzerland will be international. Reverse you fixed shipping costs...make domestic flat $35, and set international to around $29. Offer shipping discounts to Switzerland as partial refunds. Have you looked at calculated shipping for international orders, will that work better?
lacemaker3
·5 months ago@zurichvinyl
As @bdmh-enterprises said, the problem is in the meaning of the word "domestic".
On eBay USA, which is ebay.com, "domestic" shipping means shipping to the USA. It isn't international shipping, so you need to set the cost of domestic shipping as what you want to charge for shipping to the USA.
marnotom!
·5 months agoHi, I'm from Canada and my wife and I sold on eBay many, many years ago.
Unless things have changed, and I don't think they have, the "domestic" shipping rate on eBay.com is always the US domestic rate. That is to say, the rate for shipping within the United States. So in the section for "domestic" shipping you'd have to put in your rate for shipping to the United States and find the appropriate "international" flat-rate descriptor for inserting your rate for shipping within Switzerland.
I don't believe the coding of the eBay.com site is sophisticated enough to recognize that because you're shipping from Switzerland, a domestic sale would not be one made within the United States.
bdmh-enterprises
·5 months agoYour listings are on eBay.com, the US site. As such "domestic" shipping is to the US. Your shipping policy is set up for if you were on one of the European sites where the US would be international. So all US buyers will see the $10 shipping and Swiss buyers will see your EU rate.
zurichvinyl
OP5 months agoThank you for your explanation and for taking the time to help me, I really appreciate it.
However, I have to say I am quite surprised and honestly a bit disappointed that eBay cannot automatically distinguish between domestic and international shipping based on the seller’s location. My listings clearly state that the item location is Switzerland and my registered address is also in Switzerland.
In my opinion, it should be automatically recognized by the system that shipping from Switzerland to the United States is international shipping, not domestic. It seems confusing that the platform instead treats the U.S. as “domestic” simply because the listing appears on the U.S. site.
Thanks again for clarifying how the system currently works.
fullers_uk
·5 months agoHow long after you checked your shipping settings did this happen, hours, days? it takes time for data to move between different ebay sites around the world, its not instant.
zurichvinyl
OP5 months agothanks for your reply, it was about 12 hours before I resisted.
zurichvinyl
OP5 months agoThanks for your reply, it was about 12 hours before I listed the item.
frugalmarketplace
·5 months ago@zurichvinyl
I just put one in my cart and the shipping was automatically defaulting to the $10
I had that problem in reverse. My non US customers were getting the US rate..I got so tired of the nonsence that I just stopped any international shipping. It was not giving them the international option.
I think there was a problem for sure.
zurichvinyl
OP5 months agoHi, just to be sure, did you put one of my vinyl products in your basket and it showed $10.00 shipping? Where are you located?
I've only had the problem with USA buyers, I had a purchase from Spain and the shipping price was perfect.
I've been trying to fix this issue for days without resolve and it's driving me nuts! Even the help from ChatGPT5 hasn't worked.
redmodelt
·5 months ago"I had that problem in reverse. My non US customers were getting the US rate..I got so tired of the nonsence that I just stopped any international shipping. It was not giving them the international option. "
If the items are going to freight forwarders, that is what they/you will be seeing, USA domestic shipping to the freight forwarder. The buyer than pays the shipping/taxes etc. from there to them on their side.
If the OP is shipping to FF, that could be why their buyers are seeing Switzerland domestic shipping costs.